


The Weight Of Descending

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Angst, Drama, Episode Related, First Times, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 09:05:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/796407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The guys find out just how much they mean to each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Weight Of Descending

## The Weight Of Descending

by Sharilyn

Not mine, no money, just playing   


Guess we've all got a Sentinel Too tale to tell. This is mine.   


Contains spoilers for Sentinel Too.

* * *

I must only remind myself of all   
that happened both with fountains and with me,-- then I feel also the weight of the descent, in which I saw again the waters... 

\---from "About Fountains" by Rainer Maria Rilke 

* * *

I'm still dreaming about it most nights; not that it thrills me to admit it. And it's not even like I actually relive the whole drowning thing as it really happened, nothing that straightforward. Oh, no; when the dream comes, it's all just amorphous images--it begins with shifting scenes of darkness and chill winds, seguing into the disturbingly vivid sensation of cold, wet leaves piling up at my feet, their sodden brown corpses sticking to my bare toes like the icy embrace of dead fingers reaching from beyond the grave...my own grave. 

And always after the leaves I dream of black ink--thick and viscous and somehow rancid--sheeting down dank cave walls in wave after wave, rising all around me as I stand helplessly in the cave's center, exposed and vulnerable and helpless to prevent the inky inundation lapping first at my knees, then at my thighs, rising inexorably, pitilessly, to trickle like frigid ebony poison into my mouth and down my throat. Always just a trickle at the beginning, the taste of harsh words and bitterness and the betrayal of trust, opening suddenly into a deluge of midnight horror, the thick ink rushing into my nose, filling my throat and lungs and choking me, killing me...and all the while Jim merely stands high above me on a ledge in the cave, his arms crossed over his chest as his sorrowful blue eyes silently condemn me for revealing his secrets, for selling him out, for nursing a dark secret of my own...the same secret that ultimately killed me. Alex. 

And as her image appears next to Jim in my dream, her disdain for me emanating like a dank, heavy mist across the space separating us, my desperate eyes fasten onto Jim's with an expression of grief and condemnation as sharp as his own forever trapped in my dying gaze. As the jet black ink covers me and swallows me whole, leaving nothing but infinite darkness behind, it is Jim's ravaged expression of horrified regret that I carry with me into oblivion's stygian depths. 

And only then do I hear it--the tranquil burbling of the real fountain where I died; I hear with perfect clarity the serene splash and tumble of cold, clear water rising up to meet me...but before it takes me under, before I can quite recall my concussed, fuzzy, ultimately futile attempts to fight for life, I wake up. It's always the same awakening--cold, whimpering, wringing wet with sweat and trembling in the aftermath of utter devastation...And each time I know Jim has heard it all. 

I know he lies upstairs night after night--separated from me yet right here with me, even as he lies upstairs in his bed, fists clenched helplessly at his sides as his enhanced senses pick up the desperate, accelerated pace of my breathing, his sensitive ears scoping out the rapid thudding of my heart and the muffled outcries of fear I try so hard to smother by grinding my face into my pillow. I know he can smell the stink of death and terror so cloying and heavy in every drop of my sweat as it drips down my sides and soaks into my sheets; and I know he wants desperately to pound downstairs and come to me, to try however awkwardly to comfort me, to drive all the dark demons away with his touch, his voice, his presence. But I can't have him near me now. I just...can't. 

How could he have believed, even for an instant, that I would betray him; how could he think that I would just throw him to the wolves like that, that after four years of incredible friendship I would care more for my own career track than for the work we've done together? And the real bitch of it is that he _knew;_ once he'd come down from that towering rage of his and realized what really happened, he had to know that I'd _never_ knowingly or willingly hurt him. It was all a colossal fuck-up, to be sure; but Jim knew from day one that I was working on the dissertation, that at least _some_ aspect of the truth behind his sensory capabilities would come to light and arouse academic interest in certain circles. I was at fault--grievously so--for not taking more precautions with protecting his identity, for not keeping my computer files assiduously protected and inviolable. For that I deserve his anger, his disgust, his savage disappointment. But he knows my heart, knows the person I really am...and it hurts that he couldn't trust that knowledge when it counted most, when it was most desperately needed to hold our friendship together. 

I was wrong, he was wrong...how? How was he wrong, I think now as I lie in darkness, my arms pimpling slightly with goosebumps in the aftermath of my latest nightmare. With sweat drying on my skin, I stare up at the ceiling and envision Jim with Alex on the beach in Mexico, both of them so caught up in sensory-heightened lust for one another that Jim barely reacted to the sight of Alex pointing a gun at me. Ah, I think bitterly to myself as a familiar jolt of pain stabs into my chest; ah, there's the rub. _that's_ it, the real crux of my anguish, of my particular, private rage. Jealousy. I'm jealous of crazy Alex, of the hold she had on Jim, of the passion she was able to arouse so effortlessly within him. 

I've tried telling myself that my reaction was really quite understandable, that my completely legitimate concern for my Sentinel's well-being led me to overreact and blow the whole beach situation out of proportion. And after all, Jim _did_ push the gun down and away from being pointed at me...eventually. He couldn't really help it, how drunk he became on her scent, on the pheremones she was releasing to call him to her...even knowing that _she_ was the bitch who'd killed me, his best friend, he just wasn't in control of his senses...or of his mind at that moment. And God help me, but I hate that woman; even after things ended badly for her, I still can't bring myself to forgive and forget. Despite knowing the cost to my own soul of this seething hatred churning within me, when it comes right down to it, I'm _glad_ she's brain-fried. Glad, so fucking glad, that she's finally out of our lives. And I look at Jim and I just don't know how to take the broken threads of the tattered tapestry Alex left us with and weave them all back together again. 

Crap. Looks like it's going to be another sleepless night, I think glumly as I pull myself up from the tangled, perspiration-dampened sheets on my bed and shuffle toward the kitchen. Please, Jim, just stay upstairs; pretend to be asleep, pretend I didn't just wake up yelling and whimpering like a frightened child. Leave me some semblance of dignity, of privacy, to deal with this mess in my own way. 

The light from the fridge seems impossibly, glaringly bright as I lean rather stiffly inside its confines to search out the glass bottle of orange juice I know I saw on the top shelf earlier tonight; blinking against the harsh illumination spilling out around me, I grope for the juice and fumble it into shaky hands, my eyes slitted against the light. As I straighten up and close the door of the fridge, a startled oath escapes me, and I grapple wildly to retain my grip on the slick sides of the orange juice bottle as Jim's shadow looms silently before me. 

"Dammit, Jim, don't _do_ that!" I growl shakily, feeling my heartbeat accelerate and resenting the fact that he can hear it, too. "God, give a guy a little warning, why don't you?" 

"Sorry; I didn't mean to creep up on you like that," Jim replies quietly, his gaze darkly somber on mine. "I didn't realize..." 

"Never mind," I sigh tiredly, turning my back on him and shuffling over to the cabinet to take down an empty glass. "Want some?" I offer without looking at him, and after a beat his quiet affirmative prompts me to reach for a second glass. 

"I'm keeping you awake again, aren't I?" I say flatly as I pour the juice, concentrating on the task with single-minded resolve. "I think maybe I should just...leave for awhile...you know?" 

"Leave? As in move out?" Jim replies, and though his voice is quiet, the tone underlying his calm words is somehow sleekly dangerous. Uh-oh, I think grimly; I should have known this wouldn't be easy. 

"Look, Jim, you can't keep lying up there night after night, losing sleep while you listen to me carry on like an idiot," I retort abruptly as I turn and slide his glass of orange juice across the counter toward him. I can't bring myself to meet his eyes as I lift my own glass in less-than-steady hands and take an absent sip of the tart liquid. "And I'm not saying it has to be permanent...just until I get a handle on this, get through my therapy and get some things straight in my head about all that's happened. Maybe we could both use a break from...from 'us,' you know?" 

"What is this 'us', Chief?" Jim asks me now, and behind the anger I hear so plainly in his voice lies something else, something dark and silent and filled with pain. It tears at my defenses, pulls and draws at my already battered soul until I want to cry out with the anguish twisting my guts into knots. Damn you, I think wildly to him even as I force myself to breathe slow and deep, trying to conceal from him the turmoil raging within my chest. It's no good; those incredibly astute blue eyes of his compel my reluctant gaze up to his, his silent perusal holding me prisoner as he leans across the counter separating us and gently but firmly takes my chin in one strong, warm hand. 

"Tell me about 'us, Sandburg," he repeats quietly, his tone commanding, and I bite back a curse as my eyes suddenly fill with hot tears. Oh, no, damn you; you're _not_ doing this now! I order myself with silent vehemence; and the brief glare I turn on Jim is hot and fierce as I snatch my juice off the counter and whirl to pour it down the sink. 

"You know, Jim... _us,"_ I begin tightly. "The 'us' that's pretty much everything--Sentinel and Guide, friends, co-workers, room mates... _that_ 'us.' Right now I don't really know where _any_ of those interlocking pieces of what we are--what we've _been_ together--fit. Both of us have said things recently...done things...that we can't just laugh off or sweep under the rug. I can't...I can't spare the extra energy right now to worry about you, about your senses and your health and how these stupid, frigging nightmares I keep having must be affecting you...not to mention my complete inability since Mexico to get my shit together even marginally enough to go back to work at your side. I'm no good to you right now, Jim, and quite frankly, you can't be much good to me...not so long as you keep sending me these mixed signals of both resentment and concern. You don't even know your own mind right now; you're nowhere near the point of processing all your feelings toward me concerning Alex and the dissertation and every other damned thing that's been going down around here. And it's going to destroy us, Jim; we can't be 'okay' with each other till we each exorcise our own personal demons." 

"You blame me for Mexico, for Alex," Jim says now, his voice gravelly with restrained emotion. "When you found us on the beach--" 

"Don't even go there, Jim," I cut him off, suddenly feeling so damned exhausted I can't think straight. "This isn't the best time to start this, to deal with this; I just...I just can't _do_ this right now. Look; let's just both go back to bed for what's left of this night. Tomorrow I'll find temporary digs somewhere else and we'll find some way--maybe _someone_ \--to help us sort all this out. I hate what I'm feeling right now, Jim; I fucking _hate_ it. And I hate that I can't share it with you like I've shared so many things before in my life, because this time you're too much a part of it all. It hurts me just to look at you, to be close to you." 

I know how harsh my words must sound to him, how cold my tensed body language must seem as I fold my arms around myself and fasten an expressionless gaze to his. His blue eyes flare and then darken with helpless pain as he stares silently at me in the dimness of his kitchen; there is anger there, too, both at himself and at me, and as he opens his mouth to make some retort I merely shake my head wearily and hold up a dissuading hand. 

"I'm sorry, Jim; I didn't mean that hurtfully; I don't want to widen this chasm that's stretching between us now any deeper than it already is. I...dammit, you know I love you. You know...you know what your friendship has meant to me. And if you don't, then I _really_ don't belong here," I sigh mournfully, feeling a treacherous lump rising in my throat. 

"I won't let you leave me, Blair; not for good, not like this," Jim murmurs out of the darkness surrounding us; and before I can move or make a response, he's gliding smoothly around the counter and is drawing me into his arms, ignoring the way my body stiffens in protest against his physical encroachment into my personal space. As I make some abortive gesture with my arms to push him away, he gently but firmly fends off my thrusting hands and captures them between the wall of his chest and my own, holding me still as he bends his head and rests his forehead lightly against mine. I want to jerk away, unable to bear the exquisite pain of having him so close, of loving him with such angry, hopeless despair and being forever unable to admit to him that Alex's interference showed me just _how_ I love him, how deeply I want him in _all_ ways but will never-- _can_ never--have him. I want to tell him these things, but as his lips brush softly across my forehead with his own murmured words, all I can do is stand rigidly and listen, my heart shattering within me with every word he says. 

"Every night I lie in bed and listen to you," he begins in a low, deceptively calm tone; but I can feel the terrible tension coiled within him as he speaks, and my heart begins to pound dully as he continues. "I listen to you moan and cry and plead for breath, for air, for life," he whispers fiercely, his body trembling ever so slightly against my own. "Every damned night I force myself to stay still, to respect your request to leave you alone with this, to work this out for yourself. And every fucking night I relive you dying and I lie up there as useless and as helpless as I was that morning at the fountain when I found you...and you were gone. Just _gone.._ Do you have _any_ fucking idea what that does to me, Blair, how much it takes from my soul night after night to let you thresh and cry and sweat it out with no one to comfort you, no one to hold you and remind you it's over, to show you that you're _not_ dead? God, Chief, how much more can I take; how much more are you going to punish me before you're done?" 

I am stunned by his words, frozen solid by the rage and anguish and the incredible depth of pain I can feel emanating from every pore of Jim's body. I can feel myself beginning to shake helplessly in response to his agonized diatribe; I find myself shivering against him as alternating waves of heat and cold cascade through my body and leave me weak and dizzy and sick to my stomach. Desperately I try to pull away, try to shut out the frantic thundering of my own heart as my hands scrabble between us for purchase, for some grasp on sanity and reason in the midst of the emotional storm building inside me. But Jim refuses to let me go; even as a strangled "Don't!" erupts from my lips, he tilts my face up to his and I find myself drowning in the impossibly tender depths of his night-shadowed eyes. 

"I know now what I almost lost forever, Blair, what I--no, what _we_ \--both almost threw away," he whispers low and fierce, his breath warm on my face. "I never...saw us that way before, never realized...but then I lost you, and the emptiness was so vast, so unendurable, so utterly incomprehensible...and I tried to tell myself it was just post traumatic stress, a completely understandable reaction to almost losing my best friend, especially in light of all the...troubles...we'd already been having. And then there was Alex and Mexico and part of it really _was_ out of my control, but I didn't let you close enough to keep me stable, to ground me and show me how to handle my senses around her...And I hurt you so much with that whole situation, Chief, not even realizing that somewhere deep within, you knew just as I do what had changed, what _had_ to change, between us..." 

"I don't understand," I hear myself groan, my fingers clutching spastically at the front of Jim's tee shirt as his hands begin a slow, soothing rub up and down my back. "I don't know what you mean, what you want..." 

"You understand, Chief; you just need to face the truth. We both do." Jim's voice is both immeasurably sad and almost unbearably gentle as he brushes his cheek lightly--so lightly--against my own and meets my stunned gaze with an expression of such intense longing that I forget to breathe. 

"You're right, Sandburg," he murmurs sorrowfully as his mouth hovers a hairs' breadth from mine, his gentle exhalation sending a helpless shiver down my spine. "We do have a lot to work out; and maybe we _do_ need space...and time...apart from each other to do that. But when that's done--when we get our heads cleared and our 'issues' laid on the table and dealt with--then you're coming back here. Back to me, back to us...and back to this." 

And before I can remember how to breathe again, Jim settles his mouth gently over mine, the pressure of his lips the merest ghost of touch, of warmth, as he offers me the opportunity to refuse him, to pull away. But I find myself unable to move, still unable to breathe, unable to do anything but give up the final reserves of air in my lungs on a soft, tortured moan of desire as Jim deepens the pressure of his kiss, fitting his lips to mine and beginning a careful exploration of this new contact between us. 

His mouth roams across mine with a restrained intensity that sends shudders of desperate need through every particle of my being, and I find myself clinging wildly to his shoulders, my own lips parting hungrily beneath his gentle prodding to allow him greater access. I can feel his shoulder muscles trembling beneath my fingers, can sense the barely-leashed vibrations of repressed passion and need quivering through his hard frame as his kiss becomes more forceful, his lips drawing every scintilla of my will, my heart, into the unbearably powerful surge of desire bursting to life between us. 

"God, Jim, please--!" I hear myself plead, not knowing if I'm begging him to stop or begging him _not_ to stop, ever. I can feel my hands digging into his flesh, trying to push him away from me even as my mouth suckles his with increasing ferocity, increasing possessiveness. All my thoughts go whirling away from me, rising up and up into the quiet darkness of the loft as pure sensation flows in like warm honey to take their place. I never knew, some dim, distant part of my mind is babbling senselessly as Jim gives a low, feral growl and crushes me to him. Oh, God, I never knew...! But it's a lie, I know it's a lie because the feel of his tongue sweeping into the dark, moist cavern of my mouth is everything I've ever wanted, is exactly what I _must_ have to keep living, to continue breathing... 

"Don't leave me, Blair," he groans into my mouth, his hands almost hurting me, loving me with the silent desperation of grasping, needy fingers pulling me up against him, stroking and holding and importuning my body to give them what they want, what they need. "Take some time, clear your head, get all your 'mad' at me out of your system...but God, don't leave me! Please...I need...I need this, need _you_ ...here, always here, I can't do this alone, can't be here any more if you're not here with me..." 

"Shh...shh, it's okay, it's gonna be okay," I hear myself gasp out a reply, my fingers loosing their grip on Jim's shoulders just long enough to slide up and stroke the back of his neck. "Oh, God, Jim, we'll work this out, we'll be okay...I love you, Jim, I love you so much and it just scares me, it's so strong, it's so fucking strong, man..." 

"You're telling me," I feel the slightest breath of a rueful chuckle gust from Jim's lips to mine, and he presses his forehead to mine once more as we stand trembling together in the earliest hour of the dawn, our hands clutching drunkenly at each other as we both struggle to get our breathing back under control. 

"I won't leave you, Jim; at least, not for good. I don't think I _can_...I think it would kill me if I did," I sigh, and Jim's impossibly dark blue eyes hold mine in somber agreement. "And this... _whatever_ this is now between us...God, it's only going to complicate things, make everything so much harder on one level, so much more to monitor and regulate...and the effect it might have on your senses, Jim--!" 

"No; I don't agree," Jim demurs, and a wry half-smile teases the corners of his beautiful mouth as I frown blankly at him. "I think that this _thing_ between us couldn't be more simple, Chief; let me lay it all out for you. I love you. You love me; we belong together. Always together, from this point on. Once we get that processed, once we fully understand the import of that revelation...well, then, the rest is all gravy. Couldn't be simpler. Any questions?" 

"I'm sure I'll come up with some...later," I sigh resignedly, already knowing all is lost as Jim lays one of those slow, shy, absolutely devastating smiles on me. Oh my God, I love him so much, I think with something close to despair as he buries his face in the side of my neck and simply holds me close, our twin heartbeats gradually slowing and settling into one unified rhythm as his breath puffs, warm and infinitely comforting, into the shell of my ear. 

"We really have to get some sleep now, Jim," I urge reluctantly after a long, langorous interval. I can feel all my bones turning to jelly, can feel a delicious, calming lassitude settle over me as Jim's arms hold me so securely against the strong, steady wall of his chest. Part of me never wants to move again, never wants to face the glaring light of day and all the problems we still have to work out before we can move ahead; but after another long breath Jim regretfully pulls back and gives me a silent nod, one hand lifting to gently finger the unruly curls spilling around my face from my impossible hair. 

"I won't press you to spend what's left of tonight upstairs, with me," he murmurs softly, the disappointed invitation in his eyes fading reluctantly. "But I'm telling you now, Chief; if you have anymore bad dreams tonight, I will _not_ stay in my bed and just let you suffer through them. At the first sign of a whimper or a cry, I'm down here and I'm holding you in my arms right there in your bed till the sun comes up. You got that?" 

"I got it, Jim," I reply with the slightest sardonic note in my voice; always with the Blessed Protector stuff, I think ruefully but at the same time a frisson of almost hedonistic satisfaction ripples down my spine at the darkly possessive gleam I spy in Jim's eyes as he bends his head to press another slow, lingering kiss to my lips. 

"And don't worry," I add somewhat breathlessly when we finally come up for air. "Something tells me that any moaning you hear in my dreams the rest of the night won't be from fear _or_ nightmares, if you get my drift." 

"Oh, I get it, Chief," Jim murmurs, a quietly seductive gleam coming to his eye. "And don't go all practical and embarrassed in the daylight and think that this is over; it's only just beginning. Now, go on before I forget that I promised myself not to take any further liberties tonight. Sweet dreams, Blair." 

_"Now_ he tells me," I sigh; and as Jim reluctantly backs away, taking the wonderful warmth and solidity of his body from mine, I find myself shivering disconsolately, every suddenly bereft inch of my body crying out with the frustrated need to feel him close against me once more. It's almost like drowning again, I think dimly, trembling with the realization of the weight of this love descending on me, holding me to this place, binding me to this man as certainly and as irrevocably as the water in the fountain pulled me down, down into death. But this love, this bond, leads not to the grave but to warmth and life and daylight; I see now that it is a precious weight and not a burden; Jim's love for me and mine for him has kindled a blessed resurrection from hopeless grief to dawning promise, and like a phoenix rising from its own ashes, I look around me now and know that this is where I truly belong. 

* * *

End The Weight Of Descending by Sharilyn: sharilyn2@earthlink.net

Author and story notes above.

  
Disclaimer: _The Sentinel_ is owned etc. by Pet Fly, Inc. These pages and the stories on them are not meant to infringe on, nor are they endorsed by, Pet Fly, Inc. and Paramount. 


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